VALLETTA, Malta (ChurchMilitant.com) – The faithful are asking Pope Francis to cancel his April apostolic journey to the traditionally Catholic country of Malta, as it comes five days after the general elections, which pro-LGBTQ+ socialists are expected to win.

“Should Pope Francis’ visit proceed as per the scheduled dates, the new, incoming government will, in some way, be ‘canonized’ by His Holiness,” warned Philip Beattie, president of Pro Malta Christiana, in a Monday letter to Malta’s apostolic nuncio Msgr. Alessandro D’Errico.

Several priests are threatening to boycott Francis’ visit and have asked the Maltese hierarchy to consider postponing the papal visit, clergy sources told Church Militant.

However, Malta’s left-wing pro-LGBTQ+ archbishop, Charles Scicluna, who expects to be crowned head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is keen for it to go ahead, sources said.

General elections are scheduled to be held in Malta on March 26. Francis is expected to make an apostolic journey to Malta from April 2–3, visiting the cities of Valletta, Rabat and Floriana and the island of Gozo, according to the Holy See Press Office.

“The visit will be manipulated by the party that wins the elections, probably the socialists, for party political ends. The visit’s religious significance and spiritual dimension will be totally obscured if it takes place as planned,” Beattie told Church Militant.

The Real Conservatives

Malta’s Partit Laburista (“Labor Party”) is headed by current prime minister and lawyer Robert Abela. The party is a member of the Socialist International and the European Union group Socialists and Democrats.

Labor currently has a significant lead in the polls over the Partit Nazzjonalista (“Nationalist Party”) led by lawyer Bernard Grech. The Nationalist Party is pro-LGBTQ+ and favors mass illegal immigration by Muslims.

The only conservative party that openly professes traditional Catholic values is the Partit Popolari (“People’s Party”), led by Paul Salamone. The People’s Party affirms that “the right to life also fully applies to babies before birth” and promises to “oppose any attempt to introduce abortion in Malta.”

However, the party is boycotted by the mainstream media and gets scant coverage on state-sponsored television.

Beattie, an economist at the University of Malta, elaborated:

One would hope that Pope Francis would have enough common sense not to allow himself to be manipulated and exploited by whoever wins the general elections. He used this as an excuse not to receive Mike Pompeo, U.S. secretary of state, during the last U.S. presidential election campaign. Do we have a case here of two weights and two measures?

 

Certainly, given the several instances of absolute incoherence of logic that this pope has demonstrated, nothing would surprise me. After all, the pope had little difficulty meeting with Marxist dictators in Latin America in the past. Even a Maltese Marxist like Mark Camilleri could smell the rot — and has denounced the impending visit to Malta by Pope Francis in the strongest possible terms.

“The pro-E.U. federalist, pro-Islamic immigration and anti-traditional Catholic agenda will remain, whoever wins these elections,” Beattie lamented, calling Abela “a fake Catholic like Joe Biden.”

Other prominent Catholic voices are warning the Maltese hierarchy of the consequences of the poorly timed papal visit.

“Should the visit proceed, the pope’s reputation will be irreparably compromised and needlessly harmed” as Robert Abela’s socialists “will use the papal visit to gain maximum political mileage for themselves,” warned Maltese commentator Kenneth Rijock.

Since the weekend following the announcement of the election results is reserved for public victory celebrations, it is likely that the crowds attending the papal open-air Mass in Floriana could be exploited to celebrate Abela’s victory as a show of “national unity” before the personage of Pope Francis, Rijock explained.

The faithful Catholic and respected financial analyst added:

This strictly religious event could well be manipulated by teeming thousands of Labour supporters waving Maltese, Vatican and LGBT flags. From his vantage point at the papal altar, Pope Francis could well be taken in by such a spectacle.

 

Like the pope in Soloviev’s A Short Tale of the Antichrist, Bergoglio could thus be fooled into regarding Robert Abela as the great unifier of all the Maltese, the great leader who brought peace to the nation, the peacekeeper between rival factions — uniting nationalists and socialists, believers and atheists, Whites and Blacks, Maltese and immigrants, straights and gays under world peace.

Remarking on Abp. Scicluna’s “very cozy rapprochement with Malta’s socialists,” Rijock observed, “It may be too much to expect the pastor of the Maltese church to place purely religious considerations above all else” and call on Francis to postpone his trip.

Writing to the Pope

Rijock further exhorted the faithful: “In this respect, Maltese Catholics ought to boldly overlook Scicluna and immediately write directly to the pope and filially ask for the visit to be canceled” as, if this visit proceeds, “the most corrupt government in Europe will exploit the occasion to advance the Maltese Labour regime’s agenda and popularity.”

The theme of Francis’ visit, “they showed us unusual kindness,” highlights the plight of the migrants who traverse the Mediterranean toward Europe. It refers to the hospitality shown to St. Paul by the Maltese when the apostle was shipwrecked on the island in A.D. 60.

In June, Prime Minister Robert Abela joined 15 European Union leaders in declaring support for LGBTQ+ rights after Hungary passed laws banning homosexual and gender-ideology propaganda in schools.

Hungary’s laws “basically conflated pedophilia and gay issues, which is unacceptable for me, particularly since Malta is a civil liberties champion,” Abela said.

The pontiff was originally scheduled to visit Malta on May 31, 2020, but the apostolic journey was postponed due to the coronavirus crisis.